Friday, October 7, 2011

28 Republican Senators have written to protest that the HHS decision to cover contraception as a preventive health care service interferes with the constitutional right of your religious employer to dictate whether or not you use birth control. (Technically, whether it should be a covered benefit and therefore affordable.)

That’s right: these Senators are distressed because your employer, if it has a religious affiliation, should have a constitutional right to mandate your personal sexual behaviors and to trample on your reproductive health choices.

The signers include, for example, David Vitter. His known use of the public funds that pay his salary for the support of sex workers might seem to contradict his right to dictate your own behavior.

Some on our side say these loony extremist statements rile up the Republican base and turn out their vote. We should keep our powder dry and ignore them, because smart pro-choice voters are motivated more by economics and other issues. But these crackpot ideas are too often turning into crackpot laws. Seems to me it’s time to connect the dots: Our human, economic and reproductive rights are our rights, and no elected official will stand up for us until we stand up for ourselves. The extremists are attacking our economic wellbeing and our freedoms at every level. What do you think?